shout-out

i love camp hook-up. camp hook-up 4 life.

(yeah, i know it's not food. but it is beer, and apparently i like that stuff now.)

the cheese board's pizza collective

the cheese board collective is a worker-owned experiment in delicious community, located (of course) in berkeley, and consisting of (1) a cheese shop and (2) a rockin' pizza joint. crossing the threshhold into this magic land, one merges into a smooth current of scent: loam, walnut leaves, and the unmistakeable tang that reassures a body that one is in the presence of cheese. lots of cheese. enough for everyone.

a scene from the collective: two grizzled whitebeards stand at an impasse of politeness -- one outside, one inside the doorway -- until finally one gives way and goes through first. as the loser strolls through into paradise, the victor claps him on the shoulder and reveals the source of his profound respect: "you had the bigger beard." o, berkeley, how i miss thee.

fresh corn, onion, pasilla peppers, mozzarella and feta cheeses, garlic, cilantro, and key lime. it might be the cruelest thing to do to a person, to make him wait outside.

sunday zas

ho-hum. just another sunday. man, i love pizza.

noodle soup

fresh rice noodles, green onion, shreddded chicken, napa cabbage, and enoki mushrooms. this is what happens when one works close to oakland's chinatown.

sweet potato & ricotta gnocchi two-ways

a field of sweet potato gnocchi ... like little orange pillow-flowers growing in my kitchen.


ingredients
about 2 cups cooked, mashed sweet potato.
2/3 cup ricotta cheese. draining it helps, but it's not necessary.
about 1 & 1/4 c all-purpose flour, plus extra for rolling and dusting the workspace.
salt to taste.
shakes of black pepper.
a little nutmeg/cinnamon blend.

directions
mix up the sweet potato, ricotta, and seasoning.
add flour to make a dough. it should be a little sticky, but if its really got a grip on your hands, don't be shy about adding a little extra flour.
divide dough into six portions.
on a lightly floured work surface, roll each portion into a log approximately 1 inch in diameter.
cut each log into 1-inch portions.
at this point, you can freeze the gnocchi for later. or ...

deliciousness option #1: boiled
(1) set a large pot of salted water to boiling.
(2) drop in the gnocchi, about 10 at a time. you don't want them to bump into each other too much, and you don't want the water to cool down too much.
(3) boil for about 3 minutes, or until the gnocci have expanded a bit and look slick, but not waterlogged.
(4) toss with brown-butter sauce, add parmesan and sage, and go!

deliciousness option #2: fried. yes, mmm, fried.
(1) put a little olive oil in a pan and heat it up on medium.
(2) drop in some gnocchi.
(3) fry until brown and crispy on the outside, hot and mushy on the inside.
(4) toss in sauce and devour.

these, below, are unsauced, but i mixed them up with some delicious homemade pesto. lots of folk seem to limit their sweeter pastas to sweet or straight-buttery sauces, but i thought the contrast of bright, garlicky pesto let this dinner be decadent without getting heavy.

cam huong's banh mi

bread = crumbly-soft.
mayo = sweet, silky. very friendly with the vegetables.
meat = grilled pork (charcoaly, tender) + pate (unctuous).
vegetables = crisp! cilantro, pickled daikon & carrot, cucumber.

illegally good. justifiably famous.

the a-cup fried chicken sandwich at cafe 15

this is supposed to be a post about a fried chicken sandwich. "but," you say, "then why are you showing me a picture of fries and bread?" exactly.
some tout cafe 15's fried chicken sando as the nadal to bakesale betty's federer. i've eaten betty's sandwich, and it is a treat, bursting with slaw and sauce and chicken breast(s) piled so high i need to unlock my jaw a little bit, like a snake, or else devour it open-faced. cafe 15 shows more restraint. (except with the fries. which are truffled, and pretty decent, but nothing special.) do you see the chicken? that little breast -- very lightly breaded and fried to a dark caramel -- is peeping out modestly from behind a curtain of lemon-mayo-slathered baguette. it is like a tiny gorgeous starlet. next time, i will order it double-breasted.

*update: at my next visit, a larger starlet made an appearance. so perhaps the first one was just a fluke?